The Teaching of Novice Computer Programmers: Bringing the Scholarly-Research Approach to Australia Tony Clear † , Jenny Edwards * , Raymond Lister * , Beth Simon ‡ , Errol Thompson  and Jacqueline Whalley † * Faculty of Information Technology University of Technology, Sydney Australia {jenny,raymond}@it.uts.edu.au † School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences Auckland University of Technology New Zealand {tony.clear,jacqueline.whalley}@aut.ac.nz ‡ Computer Science and Engineering Department University of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA USA 92093 bsimon@cs.ucsd.edu  2 Haven Grove, Lower Hutt, New Zealand kiwiet@computer.org Abstract 1 BRACElet is a multi-institutional multi-national research study of how novice programmers comprehend and write computer programs. This paper reviews the first action research cycle of the BRACElet project and, in the process, charts a path for the upcoming second cycle. The project remains close to educational practice, with much of the data being either data collected directly from exams sat by novices, or data from think-out-loud protocols where the task undertaken by a novice or an expert is modelled on an exam question. The first action research cycle analysed data in terms of the SOLO taxonomy. From think-aloud responses, the authors found that educators tended to manifest a SOLO relational response on small reading problems, whereas students tended to manifest a multistructural response. Furthermore, those students who manifested a relational response tended to do better overall in the exam than students who manifested a multistructural response. The second action research cycle will explore the relationship between the ability to read code and the ability to write code. Apart from reporting on the BRACElet project itself, this paper serves as an invitation for institutions and individuals to join the second action research cycle of the BRACElet project. Keywords: Scholarship of teaching and learning, novice programmers, action research 1 Introduction Across the western world, enrolments in IT degrees have decreased dramatically in recent years. Among the principal reasons for the downturn in student numbers are the perceived effects of the dot-com bust, media hype over outsourcing, the subsequent impressions formed by the parents of potential students, the poor teaching of Copyright © 2008, Australian Computer Society, Inc. This paper appeared at the Tenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2008), Wollongong, Australia, January 2008. Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology, Vol. 78. Simon and Margaret Hamilton, Eds. Reproduction for academic, not-for-profit purposes permitted provided this text is included. computing in high schools and the ‘nerdy’ image of the profession. All of the above reasons, but particularly the latter two, contribute to a further issue, the small and dwindling number of women entering IT courses. Edwards and Kay (2001) found that, despite years of special programmes for women in Australian universities, little has changed in twenty years. This is echoed in Camp’s (1997) oft quoted work, The Incredible Shrinking Pipeline, and many other more recent publications. Retention is also a major problem for IT education. While this is also due partly to the factors described above, first year teaching, especially the teaching of programming, is a critical factor. In a report from the international ‘Grand Challenges in Computing Education’ conference, McGettrick et al. (2004) noted that educators cite failure in introductory programming courses and/or disenchantment with programming as major factors underlying the poor student retention in computing degree programmes. 1.1 Benchmarking Novice Programmers It is well known, but often not discussed, that many undergraduates cannot program as well as their teachers would like. This is not a new phenomenon. Soloway et al. (1983) found that just 38% of computer programming students could write a simple program to calculate the average of a set of numbers, which is a task that most computing academics would regard as being well within the capabilities of a student who has completed a semester of programming. Perkins and Martin (1989) reported that students have fragile knowledge of basic programming concepts and a “shortfall in elementary problem-solving strategies”. An entire volume of papers, called ‘Studying the Novice Programmer’, also documented the difficulties of learning to program (Soloway and Spohrer, 1989). More recently, two ITiCSE working groups have benchmarked novice programming ability across several institutions and countries. First, in 2001, the ‘McCracken’ working group assessed the programming ability of an international student